


Call back yesterday, bid time return

by randomlyimagine



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Clone Wars, Fix-It, Misunderstandings, Multi, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Yall I love time travel fics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:54:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22065088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/randomlyimagine/pseuds/randomlyimagine
Summary: “The three of us against the Galaxy.” Satine snorted. “Well, I suppose I’ve faced worse odds. Probably.”“What do you mean?” Obi-Wan asked, a smile lurking at the corner of his mouth. “This is just like old times.”Or: Time travel causes some problems. But it also presents some solutions.
Relationships: CC-2224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi, CC-2224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi/Satine Kryze, CC-2224 | Cody/Satine Kryze, Obi-Wan Kenobi/Satine Kryze
Comments: 42
Kudos: 990
Collections: Fandom Trumps Hate 2019





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RaineyDay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaineyDay/gifts).



> My very belated but still technically on time in my timezone Fandom Trumps Hate prompt answer for RaineyDay. My unending gratitude for having patience with the long wait and my communication issues.
> 
> Thanks to ShaeTiann for helping me force this plot to work for me. Title is from Shakespeare's Richard II.
> 
> Next chapter will be posted later tonight. RaineyDay (and everyone else), I hope you enjoy!

It was almost dark on Tatooine when Obi-Wan heard a knock at his door.

That was unusual for two reasons: One, traveling after dark on Tatooine was risky, preferable temperatures aside, so most avoided it. Two, no one ever visited him.

He stuck a blaster up the sleeve of his robe as he walked to the door. He might disdain them as weapons, but they had the distinct benefit of not outing him as a Jedi.

Then he opened the door, and it was Satine.

He’d known she was coming, of course, she’d been very up front about her intentions and very deaf to his protests.

But she was a tenday early, and—well. Seeing her in person, it’s...

Obi-Wan hadn’t even been sure she was still _alive_ , not too long before. Wasn’t sure she’d ever recover, not after months in a coma, and that was assuming the Empire hadn’t found her, wherever Bo-Katan had secreted her away after faking her death.

(All the more reason it had been foolish to send that message to their old, encrypted comm set, letting her know that he was alive. More foolish still to leave his new comm address, however highly encrypted the connection.)

Then Satine was hugging him, and it was all he can do to raise his arms and put them around her, to float his blaster back onto the table behind him.

—

“You and I both know you want to do this.”

“Oh, are you the mind reader now?”

Satine shot him a truly sardonic look. “Oh, yes, I definitely need Force powers to know that you want to go save our partner.”

Obi-Wan grimaced. She was, of course, not wrong. “I have responsibilities here.”

“I _know_ , Obi-Wan.” It was almost midnight, and he’s told her many things about the past two years. He’d also insisted she get some sleep after her long journey, but she had of course been ignoring him. “Believe me,” she said, voice gentle, “I understand how much this means to you. How much Luke means to you.”

“Not just to me,” he said softly, staring down at Satine’s hands. “To the Galaxy.”

Satine didn’t pause, too well-trained to do so unintentionally, but she drew out her first few words in the way that Obi-Wan knewmeant she was carefully composing her response. “As I said, I know how much Luke means to you, how important he is. But he is safe for the moment, cared for by parents he loves, totally unaware of his powers. Cody is in danger now. He’s been brainwashed and enslaved to the Empire, and he could be sent off to die at any moment.”

Then, more quietly: “I know you still watch the holonews. We both know they’re quietly phasing the clone troopers out.”

“Even if we knew where to _find_ him…”

“I do.”

Obi-Wan blinked up at her, meeting her eyes, suddenly more focused. “How certain are you?”

“Very.” There was a hint of haughtiness creeping into Satine’s manner. “Even in exile and supposedly dead, I have power on Mandalore. Even with what the Empire has reduced us to, I am perfectly capable of this.”

“Right.” Obi-Wan sighed. _Cody_ … He hadn’t seen Cody in the aftermath of Utapau.

Obi-Wan had thanked the Force, in a quiet and selfish way, that it had been Anakin’s battalion who had marched on the Jedi Temple, and not his. Not Cody. Cody had tried to kill him—but only him, and only tried.

Unless, of course, Cody had been sent to hunt Jedi after the fall of the Republic.

“I wish I could, Satine, believe me. I wish that more than anything. But I _need_ to stay here. I need to watch over Luke, I can’t do anything that...well.” He forced a small, pained smile. “I can’t really do much of anything.”

“Don’t let your addiction to self-sacrifice and misery endanger Cody.” The tone was gentle, but the words—the words tore a hole in Obi-Wan’s chest.

Obi-Wan stilled, completely. “I’m not.”

“Not even a little?”

“That's not—” But maybe it was.

It was almost unfair how, even after all this time, she understood him so completely. It was even more unfair that a part of his own mind would betray him like that—betray Cody.

They gave themselves three days to plan, and then they left.

—

“You can’t honestly expect to do this without violence.” Obi-Wan said, blinking.

Satine did not let herself grimace, huff, or sigh. She had decades of experience being in the public eye and needing to control her facial expressions. Decades. “I’m sure it’s within the realm of possibility.”

“We’re kidnapping a soldier from the middle of the Empire’s military. One that’s been brainwashed so that he’ll refuse to go with us and will attempt to kill me on sight.”

“Which is why he won’t see you.”

“Satine…”

“Just because the Empire has dragged Mandalore and the rest of the Galaxy into a violent, genocidal hell doesn’t mean that I can abandon my principles.”

“Just...fine.” Obi-Wan sighs. “But take a blaster. You can keep it on stun the entire time, but you need to have a weapon, just in case.”

Satine reared up to protest.

“Cody would never forgive himself if he killed you. And I will not let you risk putting him in that position.”

Satine narrowed her eyes. “Fine. But I’m permanently disabling all non-stun settings.”

“It’s a weapon, why do you even know how to do that?”

Staring down it her hands, Satine answered, “...I was taught how to disable all non-kill settings on a blaster when I was seven, and drilled enough on it I couldn’t forget, no matter how much I tried. Leaving only the stun setting is just the opposite.”

–

Finding Cody wasn’t easy. Abducting him, Satine knew, would be harder.

Luckily, Satine was the Duchess of Mandalore—even in exile and believed to be dead, she had connections. And she had Bo-Katan, who could actually use those connections without endangering an entire planet.

The clone troopers were being phased out. Cody had once been the Marshall Commander, the highest ranked clone in the entire Grand Army of the Republic. But by the time Bo-Katan had looked, all indications suggested that he was playing crowd control on a tiny, backwater world with no strategic value to anyone. And an incredibly hostile environment and populace that, together, created an extremely high _attrition rate_ among the Empire’s troops.

It was both perfect and utterly, utterly maddening.

“Alright,” Obi-Wan had said, as they’d docked at one of the only ports on the entire planet that hadn’t been closed due to violence—not that there were many spaceports in the first place. “Where is he?”

But of course, it hadn’t been that easy.

After all, the troops served up to the planet as sacrifices were disproportionately clones, all programmed to kill Obi-Wan on sight. And there had hardly been any soldier in the GAR that hadn’t known the faces of Jedi Councilors, much less the famous Negotiator.

Satine had forced Obi-Wan to shave his beard. Then she’d made him hide in the ship while she scouted in search of information.

“Oh, yes,” Satine snarked when Obi-Wan protested, “it’s _definitely_ a good idea for you to go poking around for clone trooper hangouts.”

Satine, of course, didn’t exactly have a long history of intel missions, but she had learned plenty during her year on the run with Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon. And her refusal to use violence had never meant she couldn’t have a spy network, during the unrest on her own planet. So as she very firmly told Obi-Wan, she’d make do.

Finding locations popular with stormtroopers wasn’t hard—she just had to follow the white helmets. Finding one popular with clone troopers was harder, but she managed eventually, by focusing on the troopers who didn’t take off their helmets even in bars.

She might have also bribed a stormtrooper to tell her where CC-2224 was, even as using her partner’s numerical designation made her sick in her mouth.

“Eh,” the stormtrooper had said, “he and a few of the other freaks are usually moping around one of the dives on the edge of town. Don’t even drink, just sit there and do weapons maintenance while the barkeep stares at them. Fucking bucketheads.”

Punching people was against Satine’s code of violence. So was murdering them.

“Thanks,” she let herself drawl in a vulgar Rim accent, throwing a few credit chips at him and striding off imperiously.

Obi-Wan, when she returned to the ship, wouldn’t let her go after Cody alone.

“He _knows_ what you look like.”

“You made me shave my beard!”

“He knows what you look like without your beard!” Yet another negative consequence of the Hardeen ordeal—the gift that kept on giving, apparently.

“He thinks I’m dead!”

“He spent more time with you than almost anyone!”

“You won’t even use violence!”

“And neither will you!” Not against _him_ , Satine didn’t say. That part wasn’t about her morals; it was about Obi-Wan's unwillingness to hurt their partner.

Obi-Wan stopped and stared down at her. “I will,” he said quietly. “If that’s what it takes to save him.”

Then Satine didn’t say anything. Just turned and walked to the ship’s bay door, and continued saying nothing when Obi-Wan followed her.

Obi-Wan kept the hood of his robes—black, very carefully a different cut from Jedi robes—pulled down as they walked through the streets, but Satine was still afraid it wouldn’t be enough.

They made it to the far side of town without incident.

There were no clone troopers in the first cantina.

In the second, they encountered a problem: there were six stormtroopers with their helmets still on.

Satine didn’t let herself react, but she thought she heard Obi-Wan huff behind her.

Clone troopers wore the same armor as every other stormtrooper. There was no way to tell them apart.

Three of the helmeted stormtroopers were talking amongst groups, with non-clone troopers and Imperial officers. Given the disdain regular officers seemed to have for clones, those could probably be eliminated. One was talking to the barkeep. And the last two were sitting at a table, polishing their weapons, no drinks in sight.

Their weapons already looked near-immaculate, to Satine’s painfully practiced eye.

She forced herself to just nod Obi-Wan in their direction.

“Can you feel him?” she whispered.

For all Jedi lacked the absurd heights of power and telepathy often ascribed to them by an ignorant public, they could recognize the mental signatures of those they knew well—once, Satine knew, Obi-Wan had been able to feel Cody from halfway across his ship.

“No,” Obi-Wan said, barely a breath.

So they walked toward the two troopers sitting with their weapons.

“Let me,” Satine said, stepping in front and pulling down her hood.

“Excuse me,” she said, as she approached the table with the two troopers. “I’m looking for the base’s commanding officer. I have an...irregularity to report. Would either of you happen to know where I could find them?”

Both of the troopers stopped what they were doing and looked up at her, though thankfully not in any kind of impossible unison.

“Over there,” one of them said, gesturing at a cluster of officers and troopers—all dehelmeted. “He’s in the hat.”

Satine wanted to groan. The fact that this was the rare commander who deigned to socialize with his minions meant she’d have to actually _approach_ him in order to avoid looking suspicious.

“Thanks,” she said, smiling sweetly, and started over.

She’d already drawn too much attention—the helmeted trooper at the bar was staring at her, along with a few officers.

She barely heard herself as she talked to the officer. If Obi-Wan couldn’t feel Cody anywhere in the vicinity, that might mean her intel was wrong—but more likely, it meant that the brainwashing had been so profound as to change his mental signature.

Her fists clenched inside the long, wide sleeves of her robe.

“Thank you,” she heard herself say.

As she and Obi-Wan headed for the door, the trooper from the bar was following.

Satine grimaced, traded a look with Obi-Wan, and let him take the lead. If they were going to have to subdue someone nonviolently, the Force was the best way to do it, and Obi-Wan would lead them to somewhere he could manage that safely, away from prying eyes.

Three streets and five turns later, the trooper was still following them.

He followed them into the alleyway too, fully in, rather staying at the mouth, where he might be seen from the street.

His mistake.

Satine whirled, Obi-Wan behind, further into the alley, his body still angled away so as to better obscure his face.

“May I help you?” Satine asked, as icily as she could manage.

“Satine?” came the trooper’s response. The accent was familiar a thousand times over, but the inflection—

The inflection was hauntingly, painfully familiar. No one else in the Galaxy had ever said her name that way. Even through the helmet’s external comm, even through the hitch in his voice—

“Cody?” she asked. It came out as a whisper. Her throat ached just from pushing it past her lips.

“Satine!” He pulled off his helmet and ran toward her. Four years older than she’d last seen, two years older than he should be. “I thought you were dead,” he gasped, as he swept her up in his arms.

“How—” Satine started. “Obi-Wan didn’t feel you—”

Too late, she realized what she’d said.

Cody froze.

“Obi-Wan is here?” He asked, voice taut. His arms tightened around her. It didn’t hurt, but the pit of her stomach did.

Cody was already looking at the hooded figure behind her. Obi-Wan’s face was almost completely concealed, with the except of his clean-shaven chin, but so close, after she’d already fucked up so entirely—

Cody let her go and dropped to his knees.

“I am so, so sorry.” Cody stared at the ground, fist across his armor in an old Mandalorian symbol of repentance.

“You’re...sorry,” Obi-Wan said slowly, pulling back his hood. He turned fully toward Cody, staring down at the other man.

They man they’d both expected to attack Obi-Wan on sight.

“Of course I am! I tried to kill you—I thought I _had_ killed you, for _years—_ ”

Obi-Wan bent down, grabbed Cody’s free arm, and pulled him up. “It wasn’t your fault,” Obi-Wan said, staring right into his eyes.

“ _I should have—_ ”

“It was _never_ your fault,” Obi-Wan said, and leaned in and kissed him.

–

Cody had been happy to leave. And beyond happy to find out that Obi-Wan and Satine were not dead, as he’d been forced to assume when there was no word of Satine after the chaos on Mandalore, and no Imperial bounties for Obi-Wan after Cody had shot him off the face of that cliff.

Cody had asked for one day, to wrap some loose ends and send some reports to the Rebellion.

“I don’t know what happened,” Cody had muttered, looking down at his gloved hands, his frame almost relaxed in the security of Satine’s ship. “Maybe I beat the chip, maybe it just wore down. But about a year ago, I started being—me. Just for a bit, at first. Not that often. But I fought. And I got free. Took—” his breath hitched “—too long. But eventually...”

“And you immediately started spying for the Rebellion?” Obi-Wan asked, voice solemn, but something in it lighter than Satine had heard the entire trip over, the entire three days of planning before it.

“As soon as I could be sure I wouldn’t turn around and sell them out to the Empire a few days later, yeah. Made myself wait until I was clear of... _glitches_ for a full month before I started trying to find them. Ended up pulling in a few brothers I could tell were getting free, like I had. They’ve been helping to provide intel to the Rebellion, but there’s not much that we can find out from here.”

That, Satine thought, was not shocking at all. None of it, but especially not the part about how much of a Force-forsaken backwater the planet was.

“Cody...” Obi-Wan mustered on. “Do you know why I couldn't feel you, on the planet? Why I still can't, now?”

There was a tension in him, Satine could feel his corded muscles under her hand. It seemed disproportionate to the question. The Force, Obi-Wan had frequently told them, worked in “mysterious ways.” Plenty of things the Force caused had never been explained. And it wasn't as if there was any evidence that the brainwashing could let its victims play the long game...

But then again, no one had ever found evidencethere _had_ been brainwashing, before. Not so far as Satine knew.

And Obi-Wan was sitting right next to a lover who had tried to kill him.

“Oh.” Cody swallowed. "Sorry, that must've been hard. Thing is, I ran into an Inquisitor, after my chip stopped working but before I was stuck here. Starting shielding then. And it helped keep th—everything at bay. So I never stopped.”

It made sense. Obi-Wan breathed out a long, slow sigh, his body loosening the slightest bit. He smiled at Cody, who quickly, briefly smiled back.

_Thank the Force._

“Listen.” Cody paused. “I can’t do anything for the brothers whose chips are still working. Not without a hell of a lot of time and specialized medical equipment. But we’re not doing much good here. I know it’s gotta be hard for you to even be around our faces, these days. But give my team a ride out of here. There’s a Rebellion drop point they can wait at. Please.”

 _They’re killing us_ , Cody didn’t say.

“Of course,” Obi-Wan breathed. “Cody, you don’t even have to ask.”

Cody snorted, wet and a little broken. Or maybe a little healing. “You are way too fine sharing a ship with a bunch of people who tried to kill you.”

Obi-Wan smiled and shrugged.

“Some of them succeeded, you know,” Cody said suddenly. “In killing their Jedi.”

“Let’s not talk about that,” Satine said, before she’d made the choice to open her mouth. But Obi-Wan’s expression had already shuttered, just enough to be noticeable. And she wasn’t going to let Cody beat himself up for something he’d never had any control over.

Committing violence, committing murder, was atrocity enough.

Forcing others to commit it for you?

Satine knew where the blame rested. And it was never on Cody. She told him so, reaching across the table of the ship’s mess and taking his face between her hands.

“You’re okay,” she said. “We’ve got you.”

Cody’s eyes glistened. “And I’ll have you. If you’ll let me.”

Of _course_ they would.

–

It was on their way back from dropping of Cody’s brother’s—just six of them, far too few free of the chips—when it happened.

Some sort of gravitational anomaly, sucking them in. Not a black hole, but not anything the ship’s scanners recognized, either. It just appeared, and when it did, they were far too close to escape its pull.

Obi-Wan had spent what he’d expected to be his last moments with his lovers in his arms, murmuring his reassurances, his thanks that at least they’d found each other again, as they did the same.

In the back of his mind, after everything they’d survived, he couldn’t believe that _this_ was going to be what killed them.

But it didn’t.

And when the anomaly spat them out, they were somewhere else. 

As they would soon find out, that somewhere else? Was two and a half years in the past. Six months before the Fall of the Republic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1/3/20: Edited to fix some typos and tense issues, and also because I totally forgot to explain the whole "why couldn't Obi-Wan sense Cody" thing.


	2. Chapter 2

“We can’t go to the Jedi,” Satine said, pacing the handful of steps the ship’s main bedroom allowed.

Satine was former royalty, but her ship had been procured to fly under the radar. It was _small_. Smaller since, unable to bear more time away from each other than was absolutely necessary, they’d moved a second bed into the cabin, pressed flush against the first, so they could all fit.

Well, Obi-Wan had moved the bed, he thought with a wry smile. The Force was still good for some things.

“She’s right, you know,” Cody said. “With all the military regulations and Republic bureaucracy, they’ll never be able to do enough. Not in time.”

“Not to mention,” Satine said, voice raising in what Obi-Wan knew was an unconscious habit, “that the Jedi must work closely with the Chancellor. If we tell them, even if they believe us, we _cannot_ risk the Chancellor finding out. Something of that magnitude, it would only be too easy for them to let on.”

“I know,” Obi-Wan said quietly. He was staring down at the mattress, but it wasn’t because the thought of the Jedi being _back_ , and still being unable to go to them, hurt. Really, it wasn’t.

“And if anyone found out about our relationship,” Cody added, “we’d be risking past you’s position in the Order, past me’s position in the GAR, and all of Mandalore’s neutrality.”

“Plus the utter chaos that would ensure if my people thought I was allied with the Jedi,” Satine added.

“I _know_ ,” Obi-Wan said, a bit louder. His partners stared at him, surprised. “Those are all valid points, even aside from the fact that the Jedi would take much too long to believe us—if they ever did.”

“So it’s settled,” Cody said. Obi-Wan felt a stab of gratitude toward him for keeping the conversation moving. There was no point in...dwelling...on what could not be. “We’re striking out on our own.”

“The three of us against the Galaxy.” Satine snorted. “Well, I suppose I’ve faced worse odds. Probably.”

“What do you mean?” Obi-Wan asked, a smile lurking at the corner of his mouth. “This is just like old times.”

–

“Well, clearly Tup killed Master Tiplee courtesy of the chips, and Fives was killed for investigating,” Obi-Wan mused. “So let’s kidnap Tup.”

“You’re kidding,” Cody said.

“When do I ever do that?” Obi-Wan asked, voice arch.

Cody and Satine just shot each other a look across the mess table.

“Okay,” Cody said, deciding to humor Obi-Wan, “so we’re going to go kidnap a member of the 501st just like that. Never mind that we don’t even know where they’re deployed.”

“Actually,” Satine said softly, leaning back against the vinyl seating, “I believe there was a holonews announcement about it yesterday.”

Cody rolled his eyes. “Fucking operational security. Fine, so we kidnap Tup, risk getting seen and making ourselves enemies of the Jedi. Upside, we get a trooper with a functioning chip that we can run tests on, see if there’s a way to disable it without individual surgery. Downside, who exactly is going to perform those medical tests for us?”

“We could kidnap Kix too.”

Cody did not even want to know if Obi-Wan was joking.

–

Obi-Wan had not been joking.

Grabbing Kix and Tup off of Boz Pity wasn’t exactly easy, but it wasn’t as hard as it could have been, either.

“If we keep pulling this off by having me impersonate General Kenobi, my past self is going to end up in trouble.”

“Yeah, we heard you the first ten times you said you were fine risking your past self for the fate of the Galaxy,” Cody said.

“I’m sure he just thinks it bears repeating. After all, who knows whether we managed to inject ourselves with any of these drugs by accident,” Satine said, pushing the hovercart forward. It had several boxes and a tarp on top, and under that tarp were Tup and Kix’s unconscious bodies.

Satine, Cody knew, was very carefully not saying anything about her thoughts around sneaking up behind people and injecting them with drugs, but the tightness of her voice gave her away. Her vows of pacifism had been...strained, by going back to the past.

Mandalore’s neutrality had always been a privilege, one that most of the Galaxy didn’t have. But at least Satine wasn’t refusing to move at all, in her principles.

She was just struggling with them. A lot, judging by the number of nights she’d been the last one to bed and the first one up in the morning. And on a ship with nothing but PTSD survivors, that was saying something.

She was still doing her best to stick to a firm no-murder rule, though. Cody hadn’t gotten around to asking what else she thought they could do with the Emperor.

–

“How _far_ in the future,” Kix asked, voice growling.

“Two years,” Cody said, looking at him level. It was just the two of them in the storage room of the ship, except that Kix was still handcuffed to a railing. So was Tup, in the spare bedroom. “Kix. Trust me.”

“...How bad is it?”

Cody's voice was grim. “All of the Jedi die. And we’re their murderers.”

“We would _never_!”

Six months before the fall of the Republic, in his first time through, Cody would have said the same thing.

“We don’t have a choice.”

Suffice to say, Kix did not take the news of the chips well. His litany of Mando’a curses had gone into aspersions the likes of which even _Cody_ didn’t know.

“Fine.” Kix looked very, very far from thrilled, but he was vod’e. He would serve, and save the lives of all their brothers while he was at it. “Where exactly am I performing this super fucking illicit medical research.”

Other benefits of having a former Duchess on your side? Access to a enormous stream of credits.

Cody grinned, despite everything. He had two brothers back. “Polis Massa.”

–

“I know we needed to take care of the chips first, in order to give Kix and Tup enough time to find a solution,” Obi-Wan said, from where he was lying next to Satine on their big, squashed-together bed. Cody was on her other side; she was resting her head on his chest, and all three of them were staring at the gray duraplast ceiling. “But I think our next priority needs to be taking out Maul.”

Satine jerked her head up a few inches. Dear _Force_ , did she want to. “We can’t.”

“We should.”

“We can’t. You know as well as I do what will happen if we do anything that appears to advantage Mandalore. And that’s not to start on what would happen if anyone caught _me_ near _Maul_ after he supposedly left me in a months long coma. And you and I both know you’re talking about killing him.”

“The fact that stopping Maul might count as revenge for you—in a hypothetical universe where you wanted it—is incidental. He does far too much damage to the Republic and the Order before the end of the war, and who knows what he’s been up to since it ended. Saving Councilor Gallia alone could help turn the tide of the Temple siege, not to mention the fact that he and the Shadow Collective are a major catalyst in several battles.”

“You’re talking about _killing_ a _sentient being_.”

Obi-Wan sat up and stared right into her eyes. “Yes, Satine. Not lightly, but yes, I am.”

Cody was conspicuously not saying anything. Satine knew what he thought of her pacifism, she _knew_ they were in a war, but…

“Principles aren’t principles if you abandon them when it’s convenient.”

That made Cody tense up. “This isn’t _convenience_ ,” he said, tone tense but controlled. “The lives of thousands of my brothers are a hell of a lot more than _convenience_. Just like the lives of all the Jedi, and all the people Maul will kill.”

“Killing people only lowers us to his level!”

“We are so _incredibly_ far from his level,” Cody said, sitting up, in a motion that forced Satine to do the same. “His level is torture and genocide and wanton violence, and you cannot _honestly_ think that killing one person to save thousands of lives is the same as killing thousands of people for pleasure.”

Satine’s spine straightened. “Nevertheless—“

“Nevertheless nothing! What did you think we were going to do with Sidious? Politely ask him to surrender? Arrest him and hope none of his hundreds of cronies come to break him out, hope he doesn’t brainwash any of my brothers into doing it for him?”

Satine forced herself to take a deep, slow breath. “It’s still murder.”

“And that would be relevant _if we had another option_.”

Satine swung her legs over the end of the bed and stood up.

She had her principles _for a reason_. Violence was _poison_. To her, to all Mandalorians, and to the whole Galaxy.

But especially to Mandalorians.

“We’ll resume this conversation later,” she said, gathering her sleep robes around herself and striding out the door.

–

Obi-Wan was the one who came to find her. It was hours later by the time he did.

She’d been sitting in the pilot’s chair, just staring out into hyperspace as the autopilot flew them on.

He sat down without saying anything. Waiting for her to make the first move, then. A typical negotiating strategy, the cynical part of her crowed.

But people liked to fill silences. And Satine didn’t like fighting emotionally, either—especially not with Cody and Obi-Wan.

“You remember what I told you I was like, back then.”

It had been years since they’d spoken of it, years since that endless, terrifying time on the run for her life. But she knew she wouldn’t have to specify.

“It was hard to believe, even back then,” Obi-Wan said after a moment. “You were so dedicated to peace by the time we joined you, so vehement about it. So bent on practicing gentleness whenever you could.”

Satine snorted quietly. “Yes, darling, it’s called overcompensating.”

She tipped her head back against the headrest of the pilot’s chair. “I met you when I was sixteen. A year before that, I became Duchess of Mandalore. Two years before that, I was one of the most deadly warriors my age in the entire system.”

“In spite of your father’s alignment with the New Mandalorians?”

Satine shrugged. “Politics are complicated. And teenagers are bloodthirsty. _I_ was bloodthirsty.”

It was hard to think about, even so many years after the fact. But contrary to what some of her opponents had claimed, her pacifism had never been the idealism of one who had never had to lift a weapon. It had always been the hard-won pacifism of a girl who had been taught to kill, who _had_ killed, and who had once relished in it.

Obi-Wan hummed, contemplative. “You should tell Cody. It would help him to know where you’re coming from, that you’re not just coming from a place of unknowning disdain for everyone who does have to commit violence.”

Satine sighed. She’d thought about telling him before, once she and Cody had gotten together as well, turning the _V_ of their relationship into a triangle. But she never had. Selfishly.

“Fine,” she said, after a long moment.

“I’m glad,” Obi-Wan said, his voice smiling. Then, more grim: “And Satine...you know we will have to kill Sidious, and probably Maul? In order to save everyone else.”

“ _I’ll apologize to Cody_ ,” she said. “But don’t make me talk about the depth to which I’m compromising my principles more deeply than you must.”

“Satine…”

“ _Please_ , Obi-Wan.”

“Very well.” He sighed. “Would you like me to send up Cody?”

An honest apology. An acknowledgment that yes, the lives of his brothers did have worth—of course they did, of course, but _killing—_ But no. She could do this.

“Yes, please.”

–

Maul was easier than Obi-Wan had expected, in the end.

One of the advantages of future knowledge was that they knew where he’d be. Florrum, during the skirmish that had resulted in Adi Gallia’s death. Savage would be there too, a bonus in terms of efficiency.

Satine had made him keep shaving his beard.

“Past you is _literally_ in this battle,” she’d said, sounding stern despite the fact that she was _absolutely_ laughing at his predicament. Satine had also made him dye his hair black, and both he and Cody were wearing the rugged outfits of bounty hunters.

“Besides,” Cody said, smirking wickedly, “no one will recognize you with that baby face. They’ll just think you’re a renegade Padawan.”

“After all,” Satine added, “you don’t look a day over twenty-five.”

Obi-Wan glared. _Cody’s_ outfit had a helmet—one that looked as far from a trooper’s as it was possible to get.

Satine just laughed, smoothing down her much more elegant bounty hunter-esque trenchcoat and pulling her newly black hair into a simple updo.

Cody and Ob-Wan had had to threaten her away form something complicated, in the name of protecting her disguise. They had thoroughly ignored her protests that it was sufficient to have the lower half of her face covered by the special, extended neck of her black top. _Nothing_ could connect her to Duchess Satine Kryze.

“I still don’t think letting parts of our faces be visible will help allay Republic paranoia,” Obi-Wan muttered as he secured wide, opaque goggles over his own eyes. His lovers just wanted to mock him.

But out in the battle, there wasn’t any room for mocking.

Well, _almost_ none. Obi-Wan could hardly deprive himself of mid-battle banter. But he ended up barely having a chance to use any—it was over too quickly. He used the Force to swipe Adi Gallia away from the battle, and when Savage turned to see who had interfered—and seemingly for his side—Cody took the opportunity to shoot from through the head with a blaster bolt.

Maul and Obi-Wan’s past self—Obi-Wan decided to call the other him Ben for simplicity’s sake—turned from their own battle, startled, both opening their stances in anticipation of the new threat.

“Now who might you be?” Ben called, voice lighter than Obi-Wan knew he was feeling.

“Oh, just an interested party,” he said, striding nearer. “Lightsaber battles are conspicuous, you know. Let’s just say I got _curious_.”

On the last word, he swatted his past self away from the fight without a gesture. Simultaneously, he used the Force to shove a sharp metal projectile through Maul’s chest.

Maul, so fixated on Obi-Wan and Cody in front of him, never saw it coming. He fell, bleeding, and seconds later—

The shrapnel exploded in Maul’s chest.

“What is the meaning of this,” Ben called, launching himself back onto the platform where the duel had occurred.

Only to leap back off as Satine fired a blaster over and over at his feet.

“Have a good day!” Obi-Wan shouted, waving jauntily, as Satine covered their retreat until they rounded the nearest corner—well, fallen, wrecked fighter ship.

Then they took off running for their own.

–

“Alarming, this is,” Master Yoda said. “New players on the stage, we cannot take lightly.”

Master Windu snorted—he let himself relax his decorum when it was a Council-only meeting, Obi-Wan knew. “Especially not new players who can kill Maul and Savage in under a minute, using the Force.”

Obi-Wan grimaced. He was very, very tired of reporting bad news.

“They let me and Master Gallia go, unharmed,” he offered. “Perhaps they’re not our enemies.”

“You’re ignoring the part where they fired about fifty blaster bolts at you,” Master Gallia said.

“Well, they did miss,” he tried. Then he sighed. “I would like to be optimistic, but realistically, they were clearly dressed as bounty hunters. I suspect their allegiances belong to the highest bidder. After all, there are plenty of independent worlds and criminal factions who would have wanted Maul and Savage taken out.”

“And unknown Force-sensitives,” Master Windu said, “have historically _not_ ended well for us. We’ll pass along a memo for all parties to keep an eye out for them, and in the meantime, we’ll hope their talents continue to be bought by those aligned against the Separatists.”

—

None of them talked, after the mission to kill Maul and Savage, until they were in hyperspace.

Satine meticulously, compulsively disassembled the blaster she’d used. Obi-Wan had never seen one in such tiny pieces.

Neither he nor Cody did her insult of praising what she’d done.

But finally they were in hyperspace, and finally they had all settled down from the tension of the mission, of finally killing Maul, and of fighting against Obi-Wan’s past.

“We _need_ to compel the Jedi to upgrade the Temple’s security,” Obi-Wan said. “We cannot risk leaving them vulnerable should Sidious manage to issue the kill order again, or should anyone Fall.” Should _Anakin_ Fall, Obi-Wan didn’t say, but Satine and Cody both heard it.

“Yeah, obviously,” Cody replied. “But _breaking into the Jedi Temple_?”

“And more than that,” Satine added, “breaking into the Jedi Temple _badly enough to get caught,_ and doing it _on purpose_?”

“Yes, well for some reason I thought hiring bounty hunters might end badly,” Obi-Wan snarked back. “And if we’re going to convince them to install serious protections against both the non-sensitive and Darksiders, they need to be convinced of a truly serious threat.”

There were ways to create objects, barriers, and other mechanisms that were imbued with the Force, but could only respond to one side of it. Such creations were mainly the realm of the Dark Side, which historically was more secretive, paranoid, and persecuted. Not to mention invested in tempting Jedi to the Dark Side by forcing them to tap into the Darkness in order to access vital intelligence, stop powerful weapons, or learn Sith secrets.

There were also ways to make it so that something—say, every single door in the Temple—could only be opened using the Light Side of the Force. True, it would not offer complete protection. A Jedi could be made to let others in, or tricked, and the situation with Barriss had proven that some Darksiders could still use the Light, at least long enough to avoid suspicion.

But something was better than nothing. And if the Jedi took a break-in truly to heart, they would implement additional measures: securing escape routes, running drills, installing automated weaponry. And, if Obi-Wan were truly lucky, such an attack would change the calculus of who was kept in the Temple and who was sent off to the war, leaving the Temple less vulnerable in the event of an attack.

After all, the Jedi Temple was on Coruscant, as far from Separatist territory as it was possible to get. The Jedi did not fear being attacked at home.

It strangled something inside Obi-Wan just a little bit tighter, to think of taking away the Jedi’s last refuge, away from the war and chaos and death.

But doing so would maximize the chances the Jedi would survive.

Of course, that also meant that he’d have to make such an attack...convincing.

“And how are the three of us going to pull off a supposed Darksider invasion?” Cody asked. “It’s not as if any of us actually _use_ the Dark Side. And only one of us even has the Force, which isn’t the odds—”

He cut himself off.

After all, the 501st had only had one Force user with them when they’d massacred the Jedi.

“We’ll manage,” Obi-Wan answered.

Satine narrowed her eyes further. “This plan had better not include either you tapping into the Dark Side ‘just a bit,’ or us traipsing around the Galaxy for weeks in search of some Dark artifacts to use in a frame job. We can afford neither.”

Obi-Wan’s lips twitched. “Well the second one might have been Plan A,” Cody rolls his eyes emphatically, “but luckily I’ve just now thought of a second plan: using the Dark artifacts in the Temple vault in a frame job, as you say.”

Satine did not look particularly mollified.

Cody, in contrast, heaved a sigh. “Alright. But you’re getting us Temple schematics _somehow_. Because if we not only have to get in, but get you into the vaults, and out safely, with time to do whatever framing yourself for Dark Side use entails, then we are not leaving anything to chance.”

—

Schematics for the Jedi Temple were, of course, not widely available. But luckily, Obi-Wan’s past self was on the Jedi Council.

“Right,” Cody drawled. “Just walk right on into the Jedi Temple and get the schematics for your break-in out of the library. No way that will go wrong.”

They could not, unfortunately, carry out the actual break-in with the same ease. The signs of forced entry had to be obvious, both for psychological purposes, and because the last thing the Jedi needed was to have one of their actual, contemporary Councilors accused of being a traitor, should anyone realize they were actually getting in by using Obi-Wan’s old Councilor codes.

Satine she just let out an amused huff. “At least this plan is non-violent.”

Obi-Wan refrained from saying that, to him, it didn’t exactly feel non-violent.

–

When the time came to break into the Temple, they did it through the maintenance shafts. Which was possibly the way Cad Bane had gotten in, from what Obi-Wan could recall. Getting in through lower levels of the Old Temple would have been easier, but far less plausible for an outsider to manage.

It would have been much less cramped, though, Obi-Wan reflected, as he _finally_ pulled himself out of air vent in front of the Temple’s quartermaster.

The quartermaster whom Obi-Wan proceeded to knock out with a strong Force suggestion.

The quartermaster Obi-Wan had grown up with had been killed during the war. A terrorist attack in the middle of what _should_ have been a routine supply mission. The new quartermaster was a relatively inexperienced Knight, thanks to the perpetual personnel shortage caused by the war, and Obi-Wan gave him no time to put up any defenses. And then, well, Obi-Wan wasn’t on the Council for nothing.

He dragged the quartermaster’s limp form behind the office desk, and waved Cody and Satine out of vent once he’d acquired Jedi robes for them.

There was no time for guilt. And the quartermaster would be found soon.

They left the vent cover and its loose screws on the floor in the name of establishing a visible entry point. And then they moved for the Library.

–

“Doesn’t using Dark Side artifacts typically require using the Dark Side?” Cody asked warily as he watched Obi-Wan attempt to brute-force the door of the Library’s Inner Vault.

It was not going particularly well.

“Typically, yes,” Obi-Wan answered, changing the angles at which he was pressing on the door with the Force. “Almost exclusively.”

“And since you _aren’t_ in fact allowed to be a martyr today, and potentially give us an evil you to deal with...” Cody trailed off pointedly.

“Since all of that, I’m not going to use it. Luckily for us, in this very particular instance, the Dark Side is...poisonous. It seeps into everything.”

Satine scoffed. “Lucky?”

“Which means that all I need to do is carry a couple of Dark artifacts through the Temple, and no one will be the wiser as to my true alignment. The artifacts will leave a Dark impression in the areas of the Force where we’ve tread.”

“So what I’m hearing,” Cody said, as Obi-Wan finally managed to dent the door, “is that everyone’s gonna notice, and escaping this place is gonna be super fun.”

“For _your_ definition of fun, perhaps,” Satine shot back.

“Indeed,” Obi-Wan murmured, still focusing—

“Oh, back up a second,” Cody said, pushing past Obi-Wan and going for the vault’s entrance keypad. The one that Obi-Wan pointedly hadn’t been using in order to avoid making it look like an inside job.

Then Cody used the butt of his blaster to force the panel open. Yanking out the mass of wires, he pulled a few and reconnected a few more.

The screen shorted. And the door creaked open.

Obi-Wan raised his eyebrows. “Nicely done.”

Cody laughed. “You know, sometimes even your compliments sound sarcastic.”

Then they were in the Inner Vault, and Obi-Wan was incredibly grateful that not only did he know where the Dark artifacts were, he had a vague sense of what they were from his time as Councilor. Moving quickly, he pulled four of the more alarming holocrons—in topic, since holocrons typically lacked a Force presence. He passed those to Satine, since they could be safely carried by non-sensitives.

Then he himself picked up the mostly wretchingly, pungently Dark objects he could that weren’t liable to kill him.

They had to move quickly: they had to double back across their original path in order to make sure it felt like a Darksider had used it. While carrying Dark artifacts that would announce their presence to any Jedi who got to close.

Luckily—as sick as Obi-Wan felt for thinking that—it was almost easy. So late in the war, the Temple barely had a skeleton crew, and as long as they stuck to the backways, it was easy.

They only encountered two Jedi. Cody knocked them out with stun blasts before the Jedi even saw them.

But their goal wasn’t to squeeze back out through the maintenance shafts. Their presence was a ticking time bomb, and anyway, they needed to make their point a little more...explosively.

The Temple hangar would be full of people, and the furthest thing from a tenable escape route.

But there was a secondary speeder bay, used only for small, local-transport vehicles.

They ran as fast as they could, while remaining stealthy. After all, the break-in would have the greatest impact if discovered only after they had left.

When they reached the secondary bay, Cody blew the doors with a prepared explosive. The Temple alarms shrieked, and Obi-Wan sent a mental apology to the Temple’s engineers as he jumped in the speeder Satine had already started, and they all flew far, far away.

Even the Jedi would struggle to find someone who’d past through the depths of Coruscant’s lower levels. And doing so would only cement their cover.

They were off-planet within two standard hours.

–

“So much for optimism, Master Kenobi,” Master Windu drawled, but there was no malice in his voice. Only the same bone-deep tiredness that Obi-Wan felt.

“So it would seem,” he said, staring that the holoprojection of the Temple’s security footage that was playing in the center of the Council Chambers.

It was clearly the same bounty hunters that had killed Maul and Savage.

“And felt any hint of the Dark Side when you encountered them, you did not?”

“No, Master Yoda. But we all know that Darksiders can conceal these things. At least for a while.”

“Well, they appear to be done concealing,” Master Gallia said. In the projection, the Force-wielding intruder knocked out the quartermaster with a Force suggestion.

A _Jedi Knight_. Knocked out with a Force suggestion, almost as quickly as a mere civilian.

“We need to increase security at once,” Master Windu said, to a round of nods. “Double the number of guards watching the security cameras. Install Force-triggered alarms that any Jedi can set off. Update the guard rounds—and add at _least_ four rounds of evacuation and intruder drills, the response to those alarms was unacceptable.”

“I think,” Obi-Wan said into the resolved silence that followed Master Windu’s proclamation, “that we should consider looking at more esoteric options as well.”

“Oh?” Master Yoda asked.

“Well, the less esoteric of my suggestions is to reinforce all the entrances. I know it will be logistically difficult to refit the Temple structure, but if we can create a blast door at each main entrance that can descend on a remote trigger...”

“And how will that stop people from sneaking in the air vents?” Master Rancsis asked.

“We should put reinforced grates over all exterior vents and maintenance shafts too, of course. But such a door in the secondary speeder bay might have stopped them from getting _out_.”

“That might not have been a good thing, the rate they were going,” someone muttered.

“But my other suggestion is this: We are clearly facing intrusion not only by bounty hunters, but by Darksiders. Given the number of Sith Acolytes and rogue Force-sensitives out in the Galaxy, I think we should consider replacing at least doors to sensitive areas with doors that can only be opened using the Light Side of the Force.”

There was a moment of silence. It could be done, of course, but it went against Jedi tradition to reinforce their Temple like it was a fortress.

“Done, it shall be,” Master Yoda said, and his word on the subject was final.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was so much fun to write. Thanks again to RaineyDay for the opportunity.
> 
> And now...the thrilling conclusion....

The next few weeks were a blitz of attacks on Separatist shipments. Separatist shipments that were increasingly well-armed, and attacks that were increasingly risky to prepare, as word of bounties for Obi-Wan, Satine, and Cody’s personas spread.

A month after they arrived in the past, Satine landed her ship on Serenno, and Obi-Wan stepped out onto the planet’s soil.

“I still hate this,” Cody grumbled.

“I know, dear,” Obi-Wan said, but neither of his partners stopped him from walking out alone.

Facing Dooku would require a certain...finesse. And Obi-Wan did not want to put his partners in a position to become the Count’s leverage.

Obi-Wan got an audience with Dooku himself by telling the manor guards that he had vital information of the count on the whereabouts of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

He didn’t let himself smirk when he said it, either.

“So,” Dooku said, strolling imperiously into the receiving room where Obi-Wan had been _politely_ made to wait. “What exactly is your information on Master Kenobi?”

“Come now, Master Dooku,” Obi-Wan said, reaching up to remove the goggles of his little vigilante uniform, “surely it hasn’t been _that_ long since you’ve seen your grand-Padawan.”

Dooku snorted. “Here to turn yourself in?”

“Obviously not. No, I’m here to tell you that your Master is planning to kill you, and that you should kill him first.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

“...I have no Master. I killed him years ago, when I ascended as a Sith.”

“Now, Count, we both know that’s not true,” Obi-Wan said, voice drawling. And then the biggest risk: “But I’ll save you the back-and-forth and tell you how I know: I’m from the future.”

Dooku grimaced. “While a good explanation for how you could be here while in the middle of fighting my troops above Felucia, in every other respect, your explanation is a terrible one.”

“If I were going to come up with a ruse, I promise you, it would be more believable,” Obi-Wan said, smiling his negotiation smile. “So how about I prove it to you by telling you something that the Obi-Wan native to this time could not possibly know: Your Master is Darth Sidious. Also known as Chancellor Palpatine.”

Dooku’s incredulous laughter was surprisingly convincing. “Oh, is that what you think?”

“It what’s I know. And,” Obi-Wan’s grin widened, “he plans to kill you in less than five months. Or rather, to have Anakin Skywalker kill you, and ascend to the rank of Sith Apprentice.”

Dooku’s eyes narrowed. “Continue.”

–

Dooku, to even Obi-Wan’s shock, seemed sincere in his agreement to join them. The man had even lowered the barriers around his mind and emotions in order to prove it, although Obi-Wan hadn’t looked to deeply, between common decency and the stench of the Dark. But he’d seen enough.

He’d also barely talked Dooku into waiting for more of their plans to be put in motion, rather than charging in alone and getting himself killed.

“I know _you_ don’t care that Sidious is going to massacre the Jedi, but acknowledge for a second that I _do_ ,” Obi-Wan had said, and Dooku had frozen.

It turned out Dooku had been told Sidious was going to corrupt the Jedi Order through the war, and turn them into the new Sith Brotherhood. And that Dooku was surprisingly hostile to the idea of the Jedi Order being wiped out entirely.

 _But wiped out halfway through this Force-forsaken war, that’s fine with you_ , Obi-Wan didn’t say.

He had a master duelist as an ally, one who knew many Sidious’s secrets. That was worth the distasteful alliance.

–

Of course, after they were accidentally spotted coordinating with Dooku, it didn’t exactly help their reputations.

The bounties on Obi-Wan, Cody, and Satine’s heads increased.

–

The day Obi-Wan saw on the holonews that the Jedi Temple Hangar had been the target of a terrorist attack, Obi-Wan spent an extra three hours in meditation.

Days later, Ahsoka Tano was expelled from the Order and sentenced to death.

Cody sat with him that night, in silence. Periodically shoved another cup of tea into his hands. Obi-Wan made sure to return the favor—Cody had always cared for Ahsoka too.

It was _Ahsoka_. They’d known it was coming, and they'd known she would be fine, but still: She was hurting so profoundly. So deeply wronged. And they had done _nothing_.

–

Somehow, Obi-Wan’s luck held: He only saw Anakin once, the entire time he was in the past. And saw was, really, the most emphatic word that could be used for the encounter. Anakin had burst in at the end of one of their sabotage missions, lightsaber aloft and expression furious.

But their ship was already lifting off. Obi-Wan only saw his former Padawan through the cockpit window.

He’d thought about reaching out to Anakin, of course—hundreds of times, since he’d arrived in the past. Maybe thousands.

But he couldn’t. Sidious was one of Anakin’s closest confidants. Anakin’s anger was too unpredictable. Anakin had no reason to trust Obi-Wan. Anakin likely wouldn’t even believe him.

And beyond that…

He had known that Anakin had struggled with the Dark Side. With his anger and hate. He’d known it for _years_. But he’d never once thought that Anakin would actually _give in_.

And if he’d judged Anakin so wrongly, when so very much was at stake…

His judgment couldn’t be trusted when it came to Anakin. If he was lucky, if he wasn’t erased as a result of the changes to history, maybe he’d get to tell his former Padawan the truth, some day. But in the meantime, he would have to keep his distance.

–

Two months after that, Cody got a call from Polis Massa. From the highly encrypted comm he’d left with Kix.

“News?” Cody asked. He was a professional soldier; he was too well-trained to hold his breath.

“EMPs,” Kix said, a huge grin on his face.

“...Elaborate, please.”

“We can disable the chips with carefully calibrated EMPs. We tested it on chips both in and out of someone’s head.”

And at that, Cody felt a headache piercing through the wave of relief. “Which one of you decided it was a good idea to leave those fucking mind control chips in your heads.”

Kix’s response was gentle, for the man, but it wasn’t actually apologetic. “Tup volunteered. We needed to make sure it that having it left in the brain didn’t interfere. Also we kidnapped a few more brothers to test it on.”

“Voluntarily kidnapped?”

Kix shrugged. “Eventually.”

“That better mean as soon as you were done explaining the situation, and before you performed any tests,” Cody growled but his heart wasn’t in it.

“Of course it was,” Kix rolled his eyes, “I’m not a fucking longneck.”

Cody let out a breath. They had a cure.

 _They had a cure_.

Sure, his dumbass brother had left his fucking chip in, and that was gonna come back and give Cody nightmares, but Kix and Tup hadn’t seen the future. To them, it was all theoretical.

Cody could still feel the order coming through his throat, to shoot Obi-Wan off the mountain.

Obi-Wan hadn’t asked whether Cody had been sent to kill other Jedi. Cody wasn’t sure whether the man was working up to it, or honestly didn’t want to know.

Cody hadn’t been. But he had been ordered to kill hundreds of innocent people, some of them in cold-blooded executions. Ordered to assassinate his brothers, for breaking the rules or when the higher-ups caught on that their chips were failing.

Once he’d broken free, he’d helped the men who’d been caught get out.

Before that...he had killed all of them. Without hesitation.

And he did not want to talk about it. Refused to, when Satine, ever the light sleeper, crept out of bed after him and asked after his nightmares.

Maybe some day he’d manage.

But for all the profound shit that Satine and Obi-Wan had been through, they didn’t know what it was like to be turned into a puppet and made to murder their brothers and the people they’d vowed to protect. So that day hadn’t arrived.

–

The next two months were a hectic rush from system to system, blasting every clone trooper regiment they could find with the highest power EMPs Satine’s money could acquire.

They’d split up, to manage. Sent Kix and Tup off on their own with EMPs too. It was a Galaxy. There were billions of clones.

At the very least, according to Satine, blasting people with EMPs to destroy mind control chips didn’t count as violence at all. So that was one more person they had working to free Cody’s brothers.

Which was good. Cody knew full well they needed every hand they could get. There were so, so many of the vod’e, even without all those that had already been killed in a Sith Lord’s pointless war.

Cody had never wished he had fewer brothers before.

He was halfway down his list of target regiments and far, far too close to what might still be Empire Day when his comm chirped.

The anonymized address was still familiar: It was Satine.

The comms were highly encrypted, but any contact was still risky.

They all called each other anyway. After so much tragedy...there were only so many more things that could be borne alone.

But that didn’t mean that they were careless: When Cody accepting the call, Satine’s image flickered into existence as she looked when she went out in public: black hair, dark red trenchcoat, the lower half of her face concealed by the specialized neck of her black shirt. If the comm had been in better color, Cody knew he’d be able to see brown contacts in her eyes. On her end of the call, Cody knew he’d look like his normal self, with a different haircut. Clearly a clone, but then, it wasn’t like someone could pick him up out of a lineup of ten billion.

“Hey,” he said, voice soft.

“Hello,” she smiled back.

They chatted, for a while. Nothing planetshattering, nothing that could pose any security risk, nothing with anyone’s name. Obi-Wan was Ben, on their calls, as he always was.

Then Satine paused, instead of mocking Cody for a truly unfortunate pun he’d made specifically to get a reaction out of her.

“Listen, I need to tell you why I called.”

“Okay,” he said slowly. _Be careful_ , he didn’t say, but he knew she could hear it. The thought of what could happen if they were compromised over a mere comm message weighed on her as heavily as it did on him.

“When this is over. If we don’t...disappear.” She swallowed, and Cody’s gaze shot out into space. The physics of time travel were a fucking mystery, and one he tried not to think too hard about, in case he started destroying things.

“Yeah?”

“You and your brothers will have sanctuary. I’ll make sure of it.”

It was something she’d never been able to give, last time, not without risking Mandalore being dragged into the war. And Satine loved him, believed that no one should be bred and forced to fight. But had always loved her planet and believed in her duty more.

Cody felt a smile bending the corners of his mouth. “Sounds nice. How’s the weather there this time of year?”

Satine laughed, as he’d hoped. “You ass.”

But she had to know how much it meant to him. “I love you.”

Satine was still chuckling. “I know.”

–

Two months after that, they hadn’t disabled all of the chips, nowhere near it, but they’d disabled enough to take the risk. And they’d make sure the 212th was one of the first battalions they hit: Cody’s past self might get a private comm from the Chancellor, might answer it again, but he would never pass the order on.

They had been in the past too long already, and they couldn’t afford to wait any longer: Darth Sidious had to die.

The duel lasted a long time—longer than Obi-Wan honestly thought that a genuine battle to the death could. In lightsaber fights, as in almost every other type of fighting, unless the skill level of the adversaries was near equal, the fight would be over quickly.

Sidious had been holding off both Obi-Wan and Dooku for a deeply unnerving amount of time.

Alarms were blaring. The Senate building had gone into lockdown—Cody had set off the alarms, when Obi-Wan and Dooku had gone into the empty Senate arena.

The Chancellor had already been waiting.

Of course he had, Dooku had summoned him. But the Chancellor had also been waiting for them to attack.

Without the element of surprise, when Obi-Wan leapt at the Chancellor from behind, ligntsaber swooping down—

Obi-Wan narrowly avoided getting stabbed himself.

Then the fight had been on.

But it would be fine, he told himself. Even if he had to die, it would be worth it. Everyone would be saved. The Jedi. Anakin. Padmé. The Council. His men. All the vod’e.

Even Satine and Cody were safe. Cody, helping with the evacuation. Satine, with the Jedi, explaining everything they had been up to before the politicians could spin everything. In case Obi-Wan failed.

He’d already been electrocuted once during the course of the fight. Dooku, in a truly shocking move, had defended him, launching in to attack Sidious quickly and fully enough to five Obi-Wan time to recover.

Assuming, Obi-Wan supposed, that it wasn’t just the typical aggressiveness of the Dark Side.

Dooku, at least, had figured out how to catch Force lightning on his blade. They’d come to a system, Dooku catching lightning while Obi-Wan deflected Sidious’s blade, whoever had the first opening taking each attack.

Dodge. Parry. Lunge. Sweep low. Block right. Stab high.

Then—

A blaster discharged.

The Chancellor fell, a hole through his eye.

Obi-Wan followed the trajectory of the shot back, back to one of the floating pods, levels up and across the room. A shot only a marksman could have made, with the target in heated battle.

Cody, of course, was on the other end of the barrel.

 _So much for safe_ , Obi-Wan thought, but he didn’t care, wasn’t even mad at Cody for risking his life, because Cody had done it, they’d all done it, Darth Sidious was _dead_.

Obi-Wan turned to Dooku. He somehow resisted the urge to let his legs fold under him in relief.

“I don’t suppose we can talk you out of trying to take over the Galaxy on your own, this time.”

Dooku shot him an appraising look. His lightsaber raised just an inch.

Then it shut off.

“I’ll send an invitation to a negotiation,” Dooku said. “I hear you’re good at those.”

“You'll send it to the Jedi Council, I hope, not a rogue bounty hunter,” Obi-Wan managed to say.

Dooku snorted. “I suppose I should be off before the leader of the Separatists is implicated in the murder of the Chancellor. Enjoy the cleanup.”

Blaster wounds cauterized, even in eyeballs. But that, of course, would be the easy part of the cleanup.

 _Well_ , Obi-Wan thought. He was almost numb with joy.

Hopefully the Jedi would believe Satine, and arrive before the lockdown lifted.

But in the meantime, Cody was floating his Senate pod down toward Obi-Wan. So that was something.

When it pulled up next to Obi-Wan’s, the first thing Obi-Wan did was kiss him.

–

Satine did, by some miracle, arrive with the Jedi before the Senate guards managed to get through the blast doors, having finally realized that the intruders and the missing Chancellor were in the Senate Chamber.

They’d figured it out during the fighting, actually, Obi-Wan was sure; there were far too many security cameras in the Senate Chamber to disable them all.

Besides, if the Jedi were to end the war, they would _need_ footage of the Chancellor throwing Force lightning and dueling with a red lightsaber.

The Senate Guard might not have been able to get in, but against the might of almost the full Jedi Council, the blast doors were nothing.

By an even greater miracle, when the Jedi led her in, Satine wasn’t even in chains.

“Quite a story, we have heard,” Master Yoda said, staring at Cody and Obi-Wan. They were no longer embracing, and the Chancellor’s corpse was at their feet.

Satine’s face was fully visible, for once. Even her contacts had been removed. Obi-Wan followed his lead and removed his goggles while Cody removed the black helmet he’d been using since they’d acquired their disguises.

“Master Yoda,” Obi-Wan bowed, feeling Cody bow beside him.

“Younger, you look, without your beard. A Padawan, one might mistake you for.”

Obi-Wan’s brow twitched. “So I’ve heard, Master Yoda.”

“You believe Satine, then?” Cody asked.

“We do,” Master Windu said. “Both she and the knowledge she possessed were convincing.”

“Like the Sith artifacts returned to the Temple, we would,” Master Yoda said, voice very dry.

Obi-Wan tried very, very hard not to flush. “Of course, Master Yoda.”

He was a Jedi Councilor, for the Force’s sake. But no, Yoda had somehow retained the ability to make him feel like an actual disobedient Padawan.

Standing behind Yoda was Obi-Wan’s younger self. And behind him was Anakin.

The younger Obi-Wan was looking at him, yes, but his gaze kept darting to Satine, then Cody, then back to Obi-Wan.

Anakin, in contrast, was just staring at him.

“Sorry for attacking you,” Cody said, wryly.

The other Obi-Wan just nodded, faintly.

Anakin might or might not have muttered, “You’d better be.”

“Alright,” Master Windu said. “We obviously have much to discuss. But the first order of business is preventing a Galactic panic.” His gaze turned back to Satine. “I hope you have some further suggestions.”

Satine smiled. Even from where Obi-Wan was standing, it tasted like victory.

“Yes,” she said. “We do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm always kind of really happy when a non-Jedi that Palpatine hurt gets to be the one to kill him, a) for the subversion of expectations, b) because non-Force sensitive ppl aren't helpless thanks, and c) cuz it would piss him the fuck off.
> 
> Also, oh my god does Cody deserve to get to kill Palpatine, after everything.
> 
> Hope yall enjoyed!!


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